The most helpful favourable review

The most helpful critical review

4.0 out of 5 starsThis movie has Hollywood written all over it but it's all good.
The movie trailer shows a picture of the White House...all of a sudden, its blown into smithereens by a laser blast!!!

This popcorn flick was all that I hoped for, nothing but 100% of everything: action, drama, humor and suspense. Many people are justified in stating that the success of "Independence Day" comes from the fact that its nothing more than what its...

3.0 out of 5 starsIndependence Day (Blu-ray)
Independence Day [Blu-ray]

Note of interest to Independence Day fans.I bought this title and was surprised that the "Special Edition" cut of Independence Day was not on this Blu-ray release as it was listed in the Special Features on Amazon's website. Very disappointed in the listing and the release!

I always hate movies that have no "planetary" aspect about them. This always kills the movie. What I mean by "planetary" is that remember the movie "THE BLOB"??? Remember how this thing comes from outer-space and starts to devour a small town somewhere in the U.S.A.???Well what is wrong with that picture?? What is wrong is that I guess the other 5.99999 BILLION people on the planet earth are having a good time and not being affected by this problem. So WHO CARES right??Same thing here. While New York and Washington and Los Angeles are getting destroyed, and then later the aliens get killed by the U.S., I suppose everyone who lives in France, Tahiti, Timbuktu were having a good one eating Hungry Man dinners right?This movie is so bad. It could'a been a contender, especially after that killer SUPERBOWL commercial.

I wish I had the energy to try and describe just how awful this movie makes me feel, but, all I have to do is think about Randy Quaid's awful character or Will Smith's terrible lines or the fact that the President of the United States of America flies a fighter plane against alien ships, and I can do nothing but moan.I saw this in 1996 and I've spent hours regretting the fact that I had contributed money to its cause. When I was at a friend's house not long ago, I saw a DVD copy of it on his shelf, so I made a joke about it being a "steaming piece of pony loaf." He took offense to it, and actually tried to convince me it was a good movie.Don't get me wrong: I'm all for a movie that knows it's bad and uses that as a device, a la Killer Klowns from Outer Space or Army of Darkness or something along those lines. But, when I watched this I could swear that someone actually took this idea seriously.There is nothing good about this movie. Please, please don't buy this. You'll only be encouraging more movies like this.

This is one of those big stupid movies that people hate and for good reason. It's big, loud and stupid. The town drunk is a hero for no reason. People punch aliens and sass em! People fly alien spaceships like they drive cars. Aliens (from outer space) use Apple computers! Oi! This movie hurts my head.Oh yea, the president can fly an f-18 why not.I kept routing for the aliens thru the whole movie. I hope this new DVD has an ending where the aliens win and kill everyone. I cheered in the theater when they started blowing up things.Beethoven wrote the score to this movie. It went "Crap crap crap craaaap. Crap Crap craaaaaaaaap"

Possibly the most idiotic film of the past 30 years. The only redeeming moment is when Randy Quaid tells about being abducted by aliens. But even there, we already guess that he will not survive to the end of the film. After all, who is a better candidate to sacrifice himself, than some wretched drunk and misfit. Utterly dispensable.

for me,it just failed to deliver.independence day looked like it couldbe a good,even great movie.it has great actors,and loads of action.italso has some humour courtesy will smith and jeff goldblum.goldblum isthe perfect straight man for smith's witty quips and one liners andeven adds a bit of his own brand of comedy to the mix.these two playoff each other very well,and there is undeniable comedic chemistrybetween the two.the supporting cast is also very strong.and then thereis the premise.aliens invade the world and the military must save theday.not a bad premise,although not original.there must be something newadded to the mix or this becomes just another alien invasion movie.thequestion is,is there anything original in this movie?true,the comedicelement is a step in the right direction.but is in enough own itsown?for me,not quite.i just found too many problems which overshadowthe positive aspects of the film,one of them being the specialeffects,which admittedly are well done.however,they are overpowering inthis movie.the viewer is bombarded with explosion afterexplosion.independence day becomes a movie about the special effects,so the characters take a back seat for most of the movie.true,there aresome touching dramatic moments in the middle to latter stages of thefilm,but the characters are not given enough screen time to bedeveloped,so there is less of the human feel than there might otherwisebe.bill pullman, as the president of the U.S delivers an inspirationalspeech at the end of the movie.Pullman is a fine actor but i justdidn't feel he had the charisma or screen presence to carry this speechoff.for me,it's one of those 'eyes glazed over and rolled back in thehead'moment.not believable.which lead us to the dialogue.aside from thepresident's speech there are are other examples of cringe worthydialogue.the actors cannot therefore take total responsibility forthis.the writers should shoulder some of the blame.finally there is thediscovery which leads to the eventual defeat of the aliens.in my mymind the odds of things happening this way are astronomical atbest.so,basically i found the movie(although entertaining)is lackingfor the most part,and is moderately successful in other parts. forme,the end result is a 2/5